Peter Dutton says Tamil family have cost us millions and are using their children as 'emotional leverage'

Daniel McCulloch

AAP

Thursday, 12 September 2019 12:12 pm

Peter Dutton justifies Sri Lankan family decision

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton has criticised a Tamil family fighting to stay in Australia.Credit: AAP

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton has referred to the children in a Tamil asylum-seeker family facing deportation as "anchor babies".

Mr Dutton said the family's long-running fight for Australian protection had cost taxpayers "literally millions of dollars".

In the video above: Peter Dutton justifies Sri Lankan family decision

"It's been made very clear to them at every turn that they were not going to stay in Australia and they still had children," Mr Dutton told 2GB radio on Thursday.

"We see that overseas in other countries - anchor babies, so-called - and the emotion of trying to leverage a migration outcome based on the children."

Australian story

The Sri Lankan couple came separately to Australia by boat several years ago before marrying, having two children and settling in the central Queensland town of Biloela.

They are now in detention on Christmas Island as the Federal Court decides whether the youngest child is eligible for protection in Australia.

Labor's home affairs spokeswoman Kristina Keneally first raised the prospect of debate around the Biloela family straying into "anchor baby" territory during an ABC radio interview last week.

Chevron Right Icon'This is an importation, quite frankly, of an American debate.'

"This is an importation, quite frankly, of an American debate about so called 'anchor babies' and the law is very different in the United States where citizenship is accorded to anybody born on American soil," she said.

"That is not the law in Australia so it's an importation of that debate."

Senator Keneally said the real issue at hand was that Biloela locals and Australians more broadly had embraced the family and wanted to integrate them into the community.